"Oh, she has no bodily form. One does not say 'her hair shall be black'
or 'her hair shall be red' any more than one makes an image of God. She
dwells in the mysterious. Even when the time comes and she steps into
reality, mystery will still cling to her. There must always be the
wonder--the miracle." He spoke softly, as he always spoke when sentiment
entrapped him. His native turn of thought found vent at these odd times
and made him infinitely interesting. The slight satire that was
ordinarily wont to twist his smile was smoothed away, and a certain
sadness stole into its place; his green eyes lost their keenness of
observation and looked into a space obscure to others. In these rare
moments he was essentially of his race and of his country.

"No," he added, as if to himself, "a man does not say 'her hair shall
be red' or 'her hair shall be black'!"

"It is very curious--very strange--a dream like that!" Max's voice was a
mere whisper.

"Without his dreams, man would be an animal."

"And you, then, wait for this woman? In seriousness you wait, and
believe that out of nothing she will come to you?"

Blake turned away and walked slowly to the window, the sadness, the
aloofness still visible in his face like the glow from a shrouded light.

"That's the hardship of it, boy--the faith that it wants and the
patience that it wants! Sometimes it takes the heart out of a man!
There're days when I feel like a derelict; when I say to myself, 'Here I
am, thirty-eight years old, unanchored, unharbored.' Oh, I know I'm
young as the world counts age! I know that plenty of men and women like
me, and that I pass the time of day to plenty as I go along! But all the
same, if I died to-morrow there isn't one would break a heart over me.
Not a solitary one."

"Do not say that!"

"It's true, all the same! Sometimes I say to myself, 'Wha a fool you
are, Ned Blake! The Almighty gives reality to some and dreams to some,
and who knows but your lot is to go down to your grave hugging empty
hopes, like your forefathers before you!' It's terrible, sometimes, the
way the heart goes out of a man!"

"Ned! Ned! Do not say that!" Max's voice was strangely troubled,
strangely unlike itself, so unlike and troubled that it wakened Blake to
self-consciousness.

"I'm talking rank nonsense! I'm a fool!"

"You are not!" The boy ran across to him impulsively; then paused, mute
and shy.

"What is it, boy?"

"Only that what you say is not the